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The X-Men Sonnets

Sonnet 1: Introduction

Mark: Pray silence as the show is starting now,
Each one of you switch off your mobile phone.
As is our custom we will ask you HOW
S’IT GOING CAPTION 2001!
The X-Men is the subject of our rhyme,
So hark as tales of mutantry transpire.
We are the National Theatre of Earth Prime,
And this is Jason P Stevens esquire!
Jason: That was Mark Boyes, in truth he is the writer.
Its thanks to him the three of us will squeal
Contrived rhymes in iambic pent-a-meter.
Here is the wife, Penelope Jane Heal.
Penny: We bring to you a punchline horrible,
On the hundred and fortieth syllable.

Sonnet 2:

Mark as Narrator; Jason as Guard; Penny as baby Magneto.

Narrator: A rainstorm in a concentration camp,
The starting point of all good comedy.
This Jewish boy, he stumbles through the damp
(In future scenes he will be played by me)
The boy he is dragged off by a Nazi,
The wire fence it keeps him from his kin.
He fears that he will lose his family.
He reaches for the fence but can’t get in.

But even though the mesh is out of reach.
He pulls himself towards it, and his guard.
The metal tears, they skid towards the breach.
But the captor takes his rifle, strikes him hard.

The force expires, they both fall in the mud,
Sir Ian Magneto dreams of Brotherhood.

Sonnet 3: Senate Hearing

Jason as Senator Kelly; Penny as Jean Grey; Mark as Narrator

Narrator: Meanwhile in the not too distant future
A solemn senatorial soirée
Robert Kelly, a senator, does badger
Marvel Girl, though in this she’s just Jean Grey
Jean Grey: You will be treating men like cars and guns
If you force mutants into registration
Many coexist with normal humans
No more than half plot your annihilation
Senator: They have genetic defects, Doctor Grey
See, on this Name and Shaming list you’ll find
Mutants can’t swim, they muck about, are gay
And some are even said to read men’s minds
Narrator: As if in some grotesque, inept segué,
Professor X, he turns and rolls away.

Sonnets 4 and 4a: Outside Senate

Mark as Sir Ian Magneto; Jason as Ecksavier

Ecksavier: Hallo Serena, aren’t you looking well.
I haven’t seen you since, well, you know when.
I saw you in the hearing; please don’t tell,
me that you’re doing dev’lish plotting then.
Magneto: Why, Charles, Ecksavier, how do you do,
Aren’t you... attractive (magnet effects) in that metal chair
And if I’m plotting, what is it to you?
You know you look much better without hair.
Ecksavier: Ignore my shiny bonce; I know your mind
Offing Senator Kelly gets you naught
You’ll Outrage normal people, then you’ll find
They’d wipe us out without a second thought

Just like the Jews in Nazi Germany
In case the audience is too dim to see
Magneto: I kept my nose clean when the Nazis came,
But can’t recall it did me any good.
this time around I’ll try a different game
Besides, the love for humankind I should
have had I lost, when someone, can’t think who
used me as a fridge magnet, broke my heart,
and then pissed off to special schools and new,
more shiny mutants, callous wheelchaired tart.
Ecksavier: You shouldn’t let our past affect the future
Magneto: We are the future Charles, we have evolved.
Don’t try to Stonewall me to make things suit you
Humanity’s a problem to be solved
Ecksavier: Don’t give up hope Magneto, have a heart.
Magneto: I bring you hope Excsavier, don’t you start!; (Magneto stalks off dramatically)

Sonnet 5: In a truck with Rogue and Wolverine

Jason as Wolverine; Penny as Rogue; Mark as Sabertooth

Rogue: Oh Wolverine please let me in your truck
I thought that you would lose that barroom fight
Until your metal claws resolved the ruck
You are like me, you are a mutant right.
Wolverine: There once was a mutant called Wolverine,
Who had metallic bones and the claws you’ve seen.
But his one true mutation,
Is regeneration,
So never needs Savlon nor Germolene.
Rogue: I ran away from home when I absorbed
With one kiss my boyfriend’s life energy.
After winning an Academy Award
For The Piano. Watch out for that tree!

Through the windshield, on the road you lay
I’m pinned inside and need an ambulance
Watch out for that for that big man to which a sa(y)
-bertooth tiger he bears a resemblance.
Sabertooth: But lo, what light through yonder visor breaks?
’Tis Cyclops’ optic blasts and Storm’s snow flakes!

Sonnet 6: Xposition

Ecksavier: I am Charles Ecksavier welcome to
The school for gifted youngsters where we find
fresh blood for our freedom fighting crew
or if being an X-Man is declined
we help mutants rejoin society
with their powers harnessed to their will
and in the sort term hide you from Magne
-to, a pow’rful mutant whom I will fill

you in about in this final quatrain.
Magneto he was my boyfriend until,
Our ideologies split us in twain
mine were upbeat, his were gen-o-cid-al.
Rogue: He seems to me to be a nice old queen.
Do you think he can help us, Wolverine?
Wolverine: There once was a mutant Ecksavier,
Who though he could change your behaviour
And also read minds
With his powers, you will find
That he doesnt know how to pronounce ‘Xavier.’

Sonnet 7: Magneto’s HQ

Jason as Kelly; Mark as Sir Ian Magneto; Plastic frog as Toad.; Penny as Mystique (and, with glasses on, as Henry, Kelly’s aide)

Senator Kelly: Henry we must protect the human race
Though mutants threaten us across the range
What is this less than likely secret base
Who is this lady into whom you change?
Mystique: A winter childhood
Thanks to people such as you
Scared to go to school; (Grabs him: he struggles.)
Kelly: The real Henry does not speak in Haiku
With eyes that glow like nothing on God’s Earth
Nor has he scaly skin of deepest blue
Are you a mutant or some kind of Smurf?
Magneto: (carrying Toad, who he brandishes at Kelly)
Mystique does martial arts and as for Toad,
Well he played Darth Maul in the Phantom Menace
So while I’m prone on these elect-er-odes
Do not be trying any funny business; (Mystique and Toad wrestle him behind the projection TV,
where he turns into a Jelly on a plate)
Magneto: You may not feel it yet but you have changed
I must be gone, have more plot to arrange; (Hands Kelly to Mystique and staggers off. She puts him out of view under the table and loses ‘eye’ contact during the haiku where he has a chance to nip off.)
Mystique: Your Summer darkens
What price your prejudice?
Oh you’ve buggered off.

Sonnet 8: Wolverine waking up with Cyclops, then Jean enters

Wolverine: I had a bad nightmare last night
I dreamt I was having a fight
The next thing I know
My claws are in Rogue
Through her lungs. Is she alright?
Cyclops: Rogue is OK, from you she stole the pow’r
To heal from howns severe but then the shame
Of harming you did make her flee so our
Computer seeks her, Cereb’ro is its name.
Jean: Professor X has found her at the station; (Wolverine sneaks off.)
Jean: Its dangerous for me to use Cereb’ro
I’ll take this opportunity to mention
Or less to mention as to foreshadow.
Cyclops: The X-Men will retrieve the mutant tyke
While Logan hides out here (beat) where’s my bike?

Sonnet 9: Wolverine and Rogue (and Magneto) on a train

Rogue: You might be wondering why I chose to flee
From the school to this train at the station
While indisposed to ask me directly
Due to your specific rhyme convention; (Wolverine: muted shrug.)
Rogue: I was ashamed to hurt you, sorry, but
The spur to leave was my new friend Bobby
He said that I should leave as hurting mut
Ants made Professor Zavier angry.

I’ll come back if this statement is untrue
And Bobby wasn’t right or even worse
Was actually a lying naked blue
minion of Magneto with plans perverse
Magneto: (enters)
Its true my agent Mystique pulled a switch
To lure Rogue. Begone, metallic bitch!; (Wolverine is thrown away.)

Sonnet 10:

There is no Sonnet 10.

Sonnet 11

Wolverine and Jean: Cyclops wanders in towards the end and starts eating the Kelly Jelly

Wolverine: There once was a mob called the X-Men
And people did fear and despise them
If this is a war
I’ll take part no more
And question the side that you’ve chosen.
Jean: Do not stomp off like some clichéd lone wolf
We will find Rogue et al. with Cereb’ro.
I just heard Charles divining his lost love,
‘Magneto, Magneto, wherefore art thou Magneto’.
He has a plan says this here Senator,
Yet it is he, a victim of mutation
Unnatural. His mind read by my mentor
Show Magneto hurt by transformation

Powered by him in some bizarre machine.
Oh. Charles has been woun-dèd by sabotage.
I must repair Cerebero as I’m keen
To find Magneto and his entourage

To Ellis Island, where the knobs are quick
Magneto will mutate them...; (She sees Cyclops eating the Jelly.)
Jean: You’re a dick.

Sonnet 12: Mimed fight scene at the statue of Liberty

Narrator/Toad , Wolverine, Mystique-Wolverine/Mystique-Storm/Storm

Narrator: Once more the tale reverts to narration
To clarify the vagueries of the plot
Sir Ian Magneto’s at their destination
Liberty Island where the bad boy’s got
Young Rogue connected to a mad device
Though his powers are technically required
To drive the thing Rogue’s copies will suffice
And this way only Rogue will end up fried.

See Wolverine ambushing Wolverine
One of course Mystique in Wolv’rine form.
She starts to lose and so departs the scene
To wander back nonchalantly as Storm
Mystique as Storm: From shadow I spring
Wary that you may not be real
Logan, is that you?
Wolverine: (sniffs)

There once was a mutant Mystique

(long pause)

Sod it

(stabs her)
Narrator: And Storm she fights off Toad with some lightning
Storm: Do you..
Narrator: And then she very nearly gets a line in.

Sonnet13: Slightly more awkward mimed fight scene

Narrator/Sabertooth: Within the head of Lady Liberty,
Sir Ian Magneto strikes and ties them down
With bands of copper green with verdigris
And Sabertooth on guard inside that crown
But Wolverine escapes his capture with
A cunning blend of self-abuse and skill
Claws through himself to break his bond and gives
Cyclops his Visor, Sabertooth to kill

His sidekicks gone, Magneto stands alone
While Storm and Jean have Wolv’rine levitated
His power’s transferred into his palone
Magneto’s beaten, his machine serrated

And so the day is saved by our heroes
In the least impressive of our tableaus

Sonnet 14

Ecksavier: A prison made of plastic quite a coup,
Magnetic powers are useless in this place
Magneto: Are you looking for hope? Because if you
Are I suggest you shut your fat smug face.
They’ll pass that law, no matter that Mystique,
Impersonated Kelly to repeal.
The first attempt. Anyway where’s that freak,
You know, the one with sideburns claws of steel?
Ecksavier: He’s gone to Canada to find the plot.
And possibly to set up X-Men 2.
Though now he’s been in Swordfish he might not
Think its worth his trouble, well, would you?
Magneto: So now you turn and wheel away? The End?
Ecksavier: You know I that I’ll be there fore you, old friend.; (Exit Ecksavier.)

Sonnet 15:

Magneto: When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love rememb’red such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.